“Cash down! I’ll not sell her one grit on credit!”
This was very embarrassing to her; she had brought no money.
“Your Thomas is hand in glove with the priest: let him lend the groats ye want!”
At this, Klembova took offence, and answered defiantly:
“Aye, he holds with the priest, and still will hold; but never shall he set foot in here again!”
“ ‘Slight the plight, brief the grief!’ Go elsewhere for your meal!”
She withdrew, but in sore perplexity, for there was not a kopek in the house. However, meeting the smith’s wife, who sat by the closed forge, as she set to complain to her about the miller’s behaviour, the latter returned, with a smile on her face:
“His power, let me tell you, will not last long.”
“Alas! who can resist so rich a man?”
“When there’s a windmill close by, we shall be able.”
Wide-eyed with bewilderment, Klembova stared at her.
“My goodman,” she explained, “is building a windmill. He has just set out with Matthew to the forest for timber; it will be put up in Podlesie, close to the crucifix there.”
“Well!—Michael build a windmill! I never dreamed of such a thing. … Well, well!—But ’twill serve that extortioner right: he has waxed too fat.”
Her feelings much relieved, she was hastening home in good spirits, when, seeing Hanka outside her cabin at the washing-tub, she went to tell her that same unexpected bit of news.
Antek, working at a cart just by, overheard her, and said:
“Magda has told you the truth. The smith has purchased a score of acres in Podlesie, close to the crucifix. … The miller will go mad with rage! But he has treated us all so that none will pity him.”
“Any tidings of Roch?”
“None whatever,” he replied, turning away quickly.
“That, methinks, is strange. ’Tis the third day we have no news of him.”
“Ah, how often has he disappeared so, and yet come back again to us!”
“Is any one of you,” Hanka queried, “going to Chenstohova?”
“Yes: Eva and Matty.—A good few make the pilgrimage this year.”
“I too am going; the linen I am washing now is for the journey.”
“There will be many from the other villages too, I expect.”
“And a good season they have chosen—just when the work is hardest!” Antek grumbled; but he would not forbid Hanka, knowing well to what intention she was making this pilgrimage.
Yagustynka joined them.
“Know ye?” she cried; “John came home from the army about an hour ago!”
“Teresa’s goodman! And she was saying he would not be back till autumn!”
“I have just seen him; very well clad … and dying to be once more in his home!”
“A good fellow, but a very headstrong one. … Is Teresa at home?”
“No, at the priest’s, pulling up flax-plants. She has no idea of what’s coming.”
“There will be trouble again in Lipka. Of course they will tell him all, and at once.”
Antek was attentive and much interested, but said nothing. Both Hanka and Klembova were sincerely sorry for the woman, and feared the worst might come to pass. Yagustynka broke in on their talk, saying:
“A fig for the justice of it all! That man of hers leaves her for years and years all alone; and if aught happens to her, poor creature! he is ready to kill her! Where’s the justice of that? He may do as he pleases, play the goat as he likes: no one will breathe a word against him.—Things are outrageously ill-managed in the world!—Why, is a woman not a human being just as much as a man is? Is she a block of stone or wood? … If she must be punished, then let him who has sinned not a whit the less, be punished likewise. Wherefore is he to have it all enjoyment, while she bears all the punishment?”
“My dear,” Klembova observed, “from the beginning it has been so, and so it will be even to the end.”
“Yea, so it will be—to the people’s hurt, and to the delight of the Evil One; but I would fain have things ordered otherwise. Whoso took his neighbour’s wife should be forced to keep her always … and if not—a stick for his back, and to jail with the wretch!”
Antek was tickled by her zealous ardour; but she swooped down upon him like a fury.
“Ye find it a laughing matter, do you? For you it is! O poisonous villains, to whom every girl is your best-beloved—till she’s yours! … And after that, ye make a mock of her!”
“A magpie when rain’s at hand makes less din than you!” Antek retorted, somewhat out of temper.
She left them, only to return in the evening, weeping bitterly.
“What ill thing has befallen?” Hanka inquired in alarm.
“What ill thing? I have tasted of human sorrow, and the draught has made me faint.” She again burst into tears, and said, sobbing all the while: “Kozlova took John in hand and informed him of everything.”
“Ah, well, had it not been she, it would have been someone else: no doubt of that.”
“But I tell you, that cottage will see some fearful deed done! I went there once: no one was in. Just now, I looked in again. There they sat, both of them—weeping. On the table lay the presents he had brought for her—all open and unpacked. Lord! a shudder went through me; I felt as when one looks down into a grave. They are saying naught, only weep. Matthew’s mother told me all: it made my hair rise.”
“Do you know,” Antek asked, “whether he said anything about Matthew?”
“He cursed the man most horribly. No, no! he never will forgive him!”
“Do ye think Matthew will whine to him for pardon?” Antek answered in a surly tone, and hurried off to warn his friend at Nastka’s hut.
He found her brother deep in talk with her, took him a little down the road, and told him all.
Matthew took in his breath with a hissing gasp, and uttered an oath.
They returned to the village together, Matthew looking gloomy and downcast, and more than once heaving a sigh.
“I see,” Antek said, weighing each word, “that you are grievously
